Saturday, August 30, 2008

Got a set of Bizhouse grip rings for my beater build. I used to not like these too much because I thought they were too hard, but I guess they've started using a softer compound recently, so I'm going to give them another shot...

Before there was EA's "Skate," there was Konami's "Skate or Die." And I'm talking WAY before, like about 20 years or so. I found a Java version of Skate or Die that you can play online, so that's pretty much what I've been doing today. The only part of the game that is even remotely entertaining is the freestyle ramp section, everything else pretty much sucks. Keep in mind that this game came out before street skating was even a twinkle in anyone's eye.

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Got a new set of Vittoria XN Pros this week. My current set is completely worn down after about 4 months... not too long considering how expensive these things are. I had heard they were changing the way they made them, note how the new pair has small knobs along the edges, and I was pretty worried about that. But, I think these might actually work better for me as they'll give me a better way to catch the rollback, and hopefully they won't wear out as quickly.

Friday, August 22, 2008

And I'm dying to know what this is all about, a collab between Nike and 3BANCHO? Kyoichi, we need more info, and if they make a size 14 or 15, I got dibs! No chance of that though I'm guessing. Still though, that's effing sick!

Thursday, August 21, 2008

Vision Street Wear, or rather the lame-ass corporate conglomerate that purchased the rights to the name "Vision Street Wear" after the real company went kaput, have brought back the old suede high tops...

I loved these shoes as a kid. I still love the style in fact, the classic logo in white on the heel of the all black shoe just looks so damn good. If they made these in a size 14 (they don't), I might grab a pair just for old time's sake. The originals could take some serious abuse...

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Drew is a cat who works for Ben's Cycle, the shop behind the Milwaukee Bikes line, and he's my kind of guy because he's always messing around with different ideas and putting stuff together. He gets an idea, and pretty much whatever it is, he tries it out, which is the way I am as well. He sent me a pic today of some wheels that he built up around BMX front hubs...

Clean. I'm super excited about another one of Drew's ideas that he's working on, but I can't talk about that, so I won't. But I want to, dammit! So much going on right now...

Gave my kid one of those crankless balance bikes for his 4th birthday a few days ago. About 5 minutes after he got it he was already coasting around the block like he was born on the thing. I'm pretty sure he's going to be a bikehead just like his old man...

It looks a lot like some of the weird new flatland BMX frames that are coming out these days...

...except I think my kid's balance bike may actually be a bit bigger than this thing.

Monday, August 18, 2008

I personally love Wellgo platform pedals, you can get 'em cheap and they're like landing pads for my size 14 feet. Drew from Milwaukee Bikes wrote me today letting me know that he has been messing around with attaching Powerstraps on a set of Wellgos, and the end result looks killer. Check it out...

Here is Drew's description...

"I've been experimenting with BMX pedals and toe straps. Stock BMX pedals have reflector holes in them and work damn near perfect for power grips. I used all the stock hardware; I just had to bend/rebend the stainless bracket a bit in order to clear a part of the pedal. These are the standard length; I would recommend the X-longs. Stock pedal / stock strap with a little bendy-bendy and you have an off the shelf system."

In case you didn't see it on ProfileFixed.com, the guys at Profile are coming out with two killer new products in the near future... a fixed/fixed Profile hub, and a spline drive system that will allow you to legitimately run Profile cranks on your FG. I can't tell you how excited I am about the spline drive system... if you've ever had a BMX bike, you probably know how legendary Profile's BMX cranks are...

No word yet on when these will be ready, but I'll definitely keep you posted!

Awhile ago I mentioned my desire to somehow get my hands on a copy of the extremely limited edition Freestylin' Retrospective book. Well, one popped up on eBay last week, without the box or any of the other items that came with the original release, and ended up selling for a whopping $710 bucks. That's a lot of bread for a book about bikes. I have a feeling that eventually they're going to do a wider release of this thing, and that guy who just dropped 7 Bens is gonna be kicking himself. At least I hope that's the case...

Saturday, August 16, 2008

They held an amateur crit around in downtown Indy this morning, so I went down to hang out and see what was going on. The guys in the final race were hauling ass, no joke. Still though, the most entertaining thing was watching people who seemed to have no clue that something was going on (all of the streets were blocked with barricades and cop cars) somehow find their way into the middle of the circuit and get screamed at by all of the spectators to get the hell out of the way...

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Had a 3 hour session with pro flatlanders Andy Cooper and Bill Nitschke this afternoon. About halfway through, one of those Red Bull Mini Coopers with the giant can on the top pulled into the parking lot. Two attractive girls popped out and started chatting us up. One of them said, "This is just like the movie Rad!" which kind of blew us away since it probably came out before she was even born.

They watched us for awhile, gave us several cans of Red Bull (I gave mine to a homeless guy who was hanging around), and took off. Kinda weird that they just drive around all night looking for people to ambush and give drinks to...

It seems like there is a ton of stuff that is happening right now, and I can't really talk about any of it yet. That's one big problem with becoming a habitual blogger, having to keep certain things under your hat for awhile becomes pretty difficult.

One thing I can talk about is the fact that I recently finished an interview with Colby and Colin from Macaframa which will be published in the next issue of Fixed Magazine. 100% psyched about that. They are a couple of really good doods, and it's great that they're finally getting close to getting the film finished. It's going to be debuted on Sept. 24th in Las Vegas, which is (not by coincidence of course) during Interbike... wish I could be there for that, should be a hell of a time.

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

I'm pretty much an Adidas guy and have been for years, mainly because they fit me better than anything else, but I definitely have respect for the way Nike does stuff. They have a Kicks Creator on their Dunks site now that has been chewing up quite a bit of my spare time at work for the past few days. You can basically design your own Nike Dunks down to some pretty minute details...

Fun stuff. And when you're done with your design, you can send it into battle against other designs that people have done, and they get voted on by others on the site. I have learned pretty quickly that I'm never going to be a shoe designer, ha ha...

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

Looks like the "girliecat" that went down in Seattle over the weekend was a rousing success...

For the record, I have absolutely no idea what's going on in that last photo. These are just the pics that Laila sent to me. I have to say, this is definitely one of the best things we've sponsored...!

Saturday, August 9, 2008

They don't get much more OG than this... 1959 Chuck Taylor All-Stars, complete with the blue labels on the heel and the "Player's Name" print inside the tongue. My dad bought these when he was in high school, back when people actually wore them while playing basketball...

Friday, August 8, 2008

The first edition of Future.Tense is going down tonight in Seattle. Note that pretty much all of the sponsors (Homework, 3BANCHO, JAN, Huge Blocks) are from Japan... looks like Justin made some solid connections during his trip, ha ha.